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Thursday, April 29, 2010

General Electric Questioned About Its Attacks on Conservatives

David Ridenour at 2010 GE shareholder meeting

General Electric's plan to shed a majority stake in NBC Universal may be an attempt to repair GE's tarnished image with conservatives and moderates.

At the General Electric shareholder meeting in Houston Wednesday, I asked GE CEO Jeff Immelt about the growing public perception that General Electric is committed to a particular ideology, which isn't in the long-term interest of shareholders.

As an example, I noted that MSNBC, part of GE's NBC Universal, runs programming that is offensive to a substantial portion of the population. Keith Olbermann has called the Tea Party movement the "Tea Klux Klan" and has said the Republican Party wants to re-impose Jim Crow Laws.

Whatever your political outlook, I said, this doesn't make sense for GE - offending a substantial number of GE customers or would-be customers. I noted also that a large number of GE shareholders, including those gathered, sympathize with what the Tea Parties are trying to do or are members of the Republican Party.

I then noted that the Gallup organization has consistently shown that the number of people who self-identify as conservative outnumber those who self-identify as liberal 2 to 1. This, I said, is further supported by the fact that Fox News Channel has been far more successful than MSNBC, consistently getting more than double the viewers.

I then asked him to explain GE's thinking in going after the 21% of the population that is liberal rather than 79% of the population that isn't, but Fox is, with NBC's programming. I also asked what he was doing to address the perception - especially among conservatives -- that GE stands against them.

Quite a bit of applause followed.

Immelt didn't answer but went to the next question.

Later, I asked the questions again, noting he hadn't even attempted to answer my questions.

He said that GE has never attempted to influence the programming for its news or public affairs programs.

I asked: What about CNBC?

That goes for CNBC, too, he said.

I then interjected that its been widely reported that GE did just that (see New York Post article here) to curb criticism of President Obama's agenda.

Again, he asserted GE never attempts to influence programming.

Then he suggested that it was a moot point anyway because GE had divested itself of NBC Universal.

I responded, GE will still have a 49% stake.

Immelt then thanked me and moved on to the next questioner.

More questions about NBC Universal - both on its politics and on the proposed sale --followed.

What was particularly interesting is that on at least three occasions, including once during my question, Immelt said GE was divesting itself of NBC Universal - a point that is factually incorrect.

When asked by one shareholder how much control GE will have over the NBC Universal joint venture with Comcast, he said "effectively none."

GE will have a 49% stake in the company, have representation on the board of directors and yet have zero influence over the decisions?

Laughable.

This has all the markings of a company that wants to continue to influence NBC Universal programming (by serving on the board) and yet avoid accountability.

When Rachel Maddow says Tea Party activists can't hear what they're cheering for because their white hoods muffle the sound (yes, she said that), and Immelt is called on it in the future, he simply will blame Comcast.

The company has burned a lot of bridges with conservatives, not only through NBC Universal, but its support for cap-and-trade legislation, participation in TARP, and lobbying for stimulus dollars.

That's likely one of the reasons GE is reducing its stake in NBC Universal - this also may be the reasoning behind its gift of $15 million to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and becoming a presenting sponsor of Reagan's centennial celebration.

The political winds are changing... and all the GE-built wind turbines in the world can't change that.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tom and Deneen Borelli Discuss Tea Parties on G. Gordon Liddy Show

Tom Borelli, director of the National Center's Free Enterprise Project, and Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow of the Project 21 African-American leadership network Project 21, discussed the 700-900 Tax Day Tea Parties across the national, taxation, ObamaCare, and cap-and-trade on G. Gordon Liddy's national radio program on April 15.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony says the premise underlying an Arizona immigration bill is not only "false," but also "nonsense," thus distinguishing it from other bills with premises that are true but nonsense, and other legislation that is false but sensible.

An article reporting on the Cardinal's sentiments, in the Los Angeles Times by Teresa Watanabe, says "the Arizona legislation, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, would make it a crime to be in the state illegally..."

Up to now, evidently, it has been legal to be in the state illegally.

Mohony is upset over legislation that, according to Watanabe, would:

...make it a crime to be in the state illegally and require law enforcement officers to check the legal status of those they suspect are undocumented. The legislation would also bar people from soliciting work or hiring workers under certain circumstances, a provision aimed at the day-labor trade.

Mohony implies this law is comparable to children being required to call 911 to report the immigration status of illegal-alien parents, and says "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation."

The Los Angeles Times says the proposed law "would not require people to report suspected illegal immigrants to authorities, as Mahony intimated."

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Monday, April 19, 2010

The New Republic States the Obvious

Today's New Republic has what seems an unnecessary story: "Why Elena Kagan Has Earned the Respect of Conservatives, Like Me."

Isn't her reason obvious? A liberal jurist who choose a career trajectory that would put her in line for a possible high court appointment is more likely to get confirmed if she has earned conservatives' respect, even when the President is a Democrat and the Senate is in Democrat control.

People who get tapped for Supreme Court appointments these days don't get chosen unless they structured their careers and public (and to some extent, private) actions accordingly, and being respected by the "other side" is part of that equation.

P.S. Turns out the article isn't about why Elena Kagan has earned the respect of conservatives like [such as] the author, but how she did it -- by being civil to conservatives and by supporting former clerks of Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Kennedy for positions at Harvard, in addition to leftists.

In an era in which "bork" remains a verb, it evidently takes very little for a liberal lawyer to earn respect from at least one conservative.

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Obama's Mystery Soccer Game - True Scandal Revealed

DavidB, a commenter on American Thinker, had this to say about a post about this "mystery" there:

The soccer fields you describe are at Fort Reno (that's the tower in the background of your photo). And, by fortunate coincidence I drove right by the fields Saturday morning. While I can't confirm the President's presence, I can confirm the following: 1) There were most definitely soccer games underway on the brand new soccer fields; 2) There were multiple DC Police cars in attendance with officers directing traffic (not normal); and, 3) At least a half-dozen black Chevy Suburbans were parked on the street, surrounded by a significant contingent of grey-suited men talking into their lapels.

So, if Obama didn't make it to the game, they sure were prepared for him. And I'm baffled by your description of this neighborhood as a "high crime" area. I live three blocks from Fort Reno and work barely a block away. Ever see a Whole Foods in a "high crime" area? There's one a block from that soccer field. Ask around about Northwest Washington and you'll soon discover that the only things "high" in the area are incomes and property values. Surely Mr. Obama's real offenses against the Republic are sufficiently obvious that we don't have to divine secret meaning from back-page accounts of his weekend activities. Oh, and I'll be walking home from work tonight, right down Chesapeake Street, in the dark, alone, unarmed...

I don't know DavidB and can't independently verify what he says he saw Saturday morning, but he's certainly right that "the only things 'high' in the area are incomes and property values." In fact, in chasing Obama there, however unfruitfully, some well-paid members of the press pool would have been returning nearly to their own neighborhood.

But don't despair, scandal-mongers, there is truly is a verifiable scandal here. The article in Time bloggers are citing as source of the soccer game's location uses an apostrophe incorrectly.

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Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Washington Post Should Fire Courtland Milloy

A long-time Washington Post columnist, Courtland Milloy, tells his readers how he would like to spit on Americans who protest against big government, and hit them and knock out all their teeth:

I know how the 'tea party' people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.

I am sick of these people -- and those who make excuses for them and their victim-whiner mentality.

They aren't racists, the apologists say. They just don't like deficits and government takeover of health care. So what does using vile epithets for black or gay congressmen have to do with that? The tea party people didn't refer to white Democrats using racial epithets. No one yelled 'white trash' or 'redneck cracker' at any of those congressmen. And none of their own ever stands up and declares that such practices are morally wrong.

If the Washington Post has apologized for this, and fired Courtland Milloy, both of which are called for, I am unaware of it.

Milloy's piece in the Post contains an embedded link in the words "Obama Plan White Slavery," but if you click the link it goes to a long Post photo spread of the March 20 Tea Party at the Capitol, and not a single sign in the entire series contains the term "white slavery," or, unlike Milloy's column, anything else remotely racialist or pro-violence.

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Last Supper Obesity Study Looks Like Bunk

A food behavior scientist (I didn't even know foods had behaviors!) and a religious studies professor who happen to be brothers have received international publicity with their theory that the size of the food portions grew over 1,000 years' worth of paintings of the Last Supper, relative to the size of the heads of the disciples.

This is supposed to tell us that people eat larger food portions now than before the Norman invasion.

This study seems like bunk to me.

For one thing, during quite a bit of this time, upper class people -- such as the ones who become artists, or commission them -- typically ate meals of many distinct courses. If you eat an nine-course meal, each of the plates had better be pretty small, unless you intend to take a few days to finish the meal. A typical meat-potatoes-veggie meal today gets served on a single plate. So voila! - a larger plate.

How did the study take into account the medieval practice of serving food on a trencher made of bread? Does it not mess the study up somewhat if the diner, having consumed the meal on the plate, then consumes the plate?

And then there's the common medieval practice of two people sharing a single trencher. How was that accounted for?

Maybe the study took these things and others into account, but none of the news stories I read or heard about said a word about them.

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Saturday, March 20, 2010

Seeing Double: Deneen Borelli on Fox Twice Saturday Morning

Project 21's Deneen Borelli will appear on Fox and Friends Saturday at 6:15 AM Eastern to discuss health care and the Tea Party Movement.

Deneen also pre-recorded a segment for Good Day New York Street Talk (Fox-5 WNYW in New York) to air Saturday between 6:00 to 6:30 AM discussing the decisions recently made by the Texas State Board of Education regarding textbooks, so for part of the 6 o'clock hour, she'll be competing for air time with herself.

As a bonus for Deneen fans, here's a picture of Deneen today at a rally outside the office of Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY):

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Defending Bill O'Reilly...

and us, and Brian Kilmeade of Fox, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, and I don't know who else.

In the final days before the health care vote, those noted above reported that the New England Journal of Medicine had published/reported on a survey by the Medicus Firm showing, among other things, that passage of ObamaCare could result in a significant decline in the number of doctors willing to practice medicine.

And you thought wait times were long now. The New England Journal of Medicine, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, polled health-care providers to determine their reaction to ObamaCare, and discovered that it has many doctors looking for the exits. Almost half of all general-practice doctors would feel compelled to leave medicine altogether if it passes...

If ObamaCare passes, you may lose your family doctor. Oh, and good luck finding a new one.

That's the stunning conclusion of a new study by the Medicus Firm, as reported by the New England Journal of Medicine. Medicus, a national physician search firm, surveyed 1,195 practicing physicians about the health reform plans pending in Congress. The doctors, representing a wide range of specialties and career levels, were asked to assess the possible impact of ObamaCare on their careers, including "income, job satisfaction, and future career plans."

Following this, according to the Daily Kos and Media Matters, the New England Journal of Medicine came out saying it did not publish the survey at all.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Fox breathlessly promoted what it claims to be a new survey from the New England Journal of Medicine showing doctors oppose health care reform, but there's a problem: the non-scientific survey was conducted months ago, was not published in the NEJM, and, according to a spokesperson for the journal, it has "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research."

Right-wing media have seized on a dubious, three-month old email "survey" that purports to show that physicians are concerned about health care reform and that 46 percent of the primary care doctors surveyed "indicated that they would leave medicine - or try to leave medicine - as a result of health reform." Many media figures have falsely attributed this survey to the New England Journal of Medicine. For example, on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: "The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine."

This is false.

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the "survey."

NEJM spokesperson Jennifer Zeis told Media Matters that the study had "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research." She also made clear that the study "was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine," and said that "we are taking steps to clarify the source of the survey."

Following these reports, we posted a correction, as did Ed Morrissey. I can't watch Fox all day, so I don't know what it did. But I don't want to close the book in this incident without saying something further: We made the correction to be as reliable as possible to those who rely on our materials, so if the New England Journal of Medicine is now claiming it never published the survey, and that it only intended to publish it in an affiliated newsletter, and has altered its website so that the link http://www.nejmjobs.org/rpt/health-reform-may-reduce-physician-workforce.asp no longer goes to a story about the survey, we don't want anyone who quotes us publishing something that a third party could point out is denied by the New England Journal of Medicine, thus discrediting the third party, through no fault of their own. So we made the "correction," and we'll leave it up.

But we also want to make it clear that the New England Journal of Medicine did indeed publish this survey on it website. Judge for yourselves (open in new window to enlarge):

The NEJM has now changed the page to this, which is how we are now citing it, but we have a message for the New England Journal of Medicine: If you don't want people saying you reported on or published something, don't post it on your website with your logo at the top.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Why Read Time or McClatchy, When You Can Just Visit the Media Matters Website Directly?

Kate Pickert of Time magazine's Swampland column complains that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh responded to the left's exploitation of 11-year-old Marcelas Owens in its desperate 14-month effort to pass its health care takeover.

According to Pickert, Limabugh said:

"Now this is unseemly, exploitative, an 11-year-old boy being forced to tell his story all over just to benefit the Democrat Party and Barack Obama ...And, I would say this to Marcelas Owens: 'Well, your mom would still have died, because Obamacare doesn't kick in until 2014.'"

and Beck said:

"That's the George Soros-funded Obama-approved group fighting for health care... Since all of the groups are so concerned and involved now, may I ask where were you when Marcelas' mother was vomiting blood?"

I don't see either of those statements as an attack on Marcelas, so if that's the worst Pickert can come up with, it appears the gentlemen were holding their fire, probably in deference to the boy's age.

Pickert then rather hypocritically says:

Since Democrats are trotting Marcelas before the cameras, there's nothing wrong with reporters or pundits checking out his story to see if it's true. That's fair game.

O-kay. Reporters checking out the family's personal history to see if Mercalas is a liar is one thing, but Limbaugh pointing out that passage of ObamaCare wouldn't help Mercalas' mother if she were alive and sick today, or Beck wondering why the groups exploiting Mercelas now didn't help his family when it could have used the help, is not?

Pickert linked to a McClatchy Newspapers story by Les Blumenthal as the source of her Limbaugh and Beck quotes. The Blumenthal story tracks extremely, extremely closely with a March 6 post by the left-wing Media Matters organization.

By sourcing Blumenthal rather than the Limbaugh and Beck shows themselves, Pickert essentially admits she did not listen to, or read a transcript of, what the two men said in context. By citing only the same quotes Media Matters reported, along with quotes from a Michelle Malkin column that the Media Matters post linked to, McClatchy's Blumenthal pretty much signals he reguritatated left-wing talking points and called it news.

Media Matters, for its part, was appreciative: It ran a post today commending Blumenthal for his article that "simply lays out the facts."

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Project 21's Deneen Borelli on "Hannity" Tonight

Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli will appear on the "Great American Panel" on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity" program at 9:00 PM eastern on Tuesday, March 16.

Deneen has been interviewed on Fox News Channel, Hot Tea Radio and many other media outlets lately about the health care debate and how it is growing the tea party movement. Today saw several tea party rallies in Washington and across the nation related to the push for a health care vote this week, so it is likely Deneen will be speaking about this important issue tonight.

Check your local listings for Fox News Channel on cable. Fox News is available on channel 118 on Fios, channel 205 on Dish Network and channel 360 on DirecTV.

This post was written by David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Write the author at [email protected]. As we occasionally reprint letters on the blog, please note if you prefer that your correspondence be kept private, or only published anonymously.

On the Slaughter Solution, A Few More Thoughts

Over at the Washington Examiner, Mark Tapscott has blogged about the constitutional issues I raised Sunday with regard to the so-called "Slaughter Solution."

The Slaughter Solution is a proposed rule to allow the House to (ostensibly) pass the Senate's version of ObamaCare by passing a rule saying, in effect, that it had passed without actually voting for it.

Although it is not yet clear if the Democratic leadership will decide to use the Slaughter Rule tactic, the left is pre-emptively defending the measure, claiming the Republicans used "self-executing rules" on numerous occasions when in the majority.

To that, a few thoughts of my own:

1) While the Republicans may have done so, they (insofar as I can determine) limited the use of the tactic to measures insufficiently controversial to inspire anyone to challenge the constitutionality of the tactic in court. According to a 2006 Congressional Research Service report (pdf), for instance, the GOP used the rule for the following purposes:

a) consider a law prohibiting smoking on airline flights under two hours;b) place a voluntary employment verification program (vis-a-vis immigration status) into an amendment under consideration in the House;c) incorporate into legislation a ban on the use of statistical sampling in the 2000 Census until a court ruled on its constitutionality;d) incorporate four bipartisan amendments into an IRS reform bill;e) drop from an intelligence authorization bill a provision allowing the CIA to offer a particular early retirement program;f) to adopt a manager's amendment, H.Res. 75, to an immigration bill in 2005.

Do these strike anyone as roughly equivalent to the significance of the ObamaCare vote?

2) So what if the Republicans did it? Does that make it right? Or constitutional? The GOP leadership also broke the House rules by holding a three-hour roll-call vote on its prescription drug bill back in 2003 (which conservatives screamed about at the time; see here for example). Does that mean conservatives and others who believe in free markets (or free choice in health care) have to sit by let the Democrats break that rule in the same fashion, too? When do we start playing by the rules?

3) If I were a Democratic politician interested in future electoral success, even if I supported ObamaCare, I would be very wary of voting for it this way. What if the legislation passes via a Slaughter Solution tactic, and the federal courts rule the tactic unconstitutional? ObamaCare would be tossed out, making supportive politicians look both impotent and vaguely corrupt, and on a judicial timetable, which could be right before an election. If I were in that situation, I'd think it better to hold an up-or-down vote and live with the consequences.

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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Britain Censors Climate News

It seems Britain's independent, non-governmental Advertising Standards Authority, charged with monitoring advertising for truthfulness, has banned advertisements by Britain's Labour government for exaggerating the risk posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

The ads claimed heat waves, storms and floods will become more "frequent and intense" thanks to "climate change."

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled it is impossible for the government to make such a claim with certainty.

ADDENDUM: Here's what the banned ads look like (open in another window to enlarge):

The ruling doesn't mean the government has stopped telling mis-truths about global warming, however. For example, on a webpage entitled "Climate change myths and misconceptions," the British government claims climate regulations will lower the cost of energy:

If this were true, the market would take care of the matter without the need for government interference.

I don't mean to single out the British government, however. Our own lies about global warming rather often.

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Thursday, March 04, 2010

Deneen Borelli Discusses Health Care and Tea Party Movement on Fox and Friends

On this morning's edition of Fox and Friends, Project 21 full-time fellow Deneen Borelli discussed the Tea Party movement's reaction to President Obama's continuing push for the big government health care plan.

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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Articles We'd We'd Like To See Removed from the Internet

I see "The Root," a website run by the Washington Post and Henry Louis Gates, has declined to remove an article equating black conservatives with criminals just because they are conservative.

Project 21 members complained about this article on February 24; others have as well, but as usual, black conservatives are considered fair game.

I think their rule is that white people are allowed to think for themselves, but black people aren't, though you'd have to confirm that's what the logic is with the Washington Post and Henry Louis Gates.

Shameful.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Project 21's Robin Martin on PBS "To the Contrary" This Weekend

Project 21 member Robin Martin is scheduled to appear on the PBS public affairs television program "To the Contrary" airing this weekend on public television stations nationwide.

Currently in its 18th year, "To the Contrary" seeks to provide a "timely forum for women to discuss national and international issues and policies. It presents news and views that are rarely, if ever, available elsewhere on television."

Among the topics scheduled to be discussed this week are childhood obesity and environmental justice.

"To the Contrary" is aired at various times around the country. To find out where and when it is broadcast in your area, click here.

This post was written by David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Write the author at [email protected]. As we occasionally reprint letters on the blog, please note if you prefer that your correspondence be kept private, or only published anonymously.

Keith Olbermann Lists Children As Worst Persons in World for Making Innocent Snow Joke About Al Gore

Keith Olbermann Tuesday night named among his "worst persons in the world" four minor grandchildren of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, along with their parents. Their "crime"? They built an igloo out of snow and posted near it a sign with a very innocent Al Gore joke ("Al Gore's new home. Honk if you [heart] global warming.").

Olbermann claims it was wrong for the family to make a snow joke, because the snowstorm killed people (though not, he should have noted, in or because of the Inhofe family's igloo). Up to now, weather-related jokes have not been considered beyond the pale, even for children.

Olbermann then put on his best "you're an idiot" voice to claim that "global warming" is really called "climate change" (implying strongly the children are dumb because they called the theory by the same name James Hansen uses), and, Olbermann says, "climate change" means it will be colder in winter.

GE should be ashamed of itself for allowing its personnel to attack children on the air. These kids probably are sophisticated enough to realize that Olbermann's just doing it for attention, but it's still pathetic to see a giant corporation going after kids.

Hat tips to the FixedNewsChannel for uploading this to YouTube and to Senator James Inhofe for the pictures.

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Meghan McCain: "Revolutions Start with Young People"

The clever bunnies on ABC's "The View" went deep and asked Meghan McCain to comment on the National Tea Party Convention. Miss McCain's response, called "scathing" by FoxNews.com, included her observation that "revolutions start with young people."

The average age of a signer of the Declaration of Independence was 45. Vladimir Lenin was 47 at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Mao Zedong was 57 when the People's Republic of China was established. Ruhollah Khomeini was 77 at the time of the Iranian Revolution. Mahatma Gandhi was 76 when Britain signaled it would quit India. Nelson Mandela was 76 when black South Africans were fully enfranchised and he was elected president.

It is true that Fidel Castro was 33 when he seized power in Cuba, and Maximilien Robespierre in his mid-thirties during key events of the French Revolution.

Maybe Miss McCain was thinking of the exceptions.

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Obama & ABC, Sitting in a Tree

Matt Patterson

On January 21, TVNewser reported that "NBC News has filed a formal complaint with the White House press office over the distribution of presidential interviews, specifically that several of the most recent broadcast TV interviews have gone to ABC News - including George Stephanopoulos's interview yesterday and Charlie Gibson's December 15."

Later they posted an update, saying "An NBC News spokesperson tells us, 'NBC News did not file a formal or informal complaint about this interview." The updated post now claimed merely that "NBC News has expressed concern" over the matter.

Whether NBC complained formally or informally, or merely expressed "concern," it is clear that the Peacock network is none too happy with ABC's cozy relationship with the Obama White House. And can you blame them? Goodness, how much can a network throw themselves at a politician before he pays them the requisite attention? Remember MSNBC's Chris Matthews' infamous and lurid "thrill going up my leg" reaction to an Obama speech? Have you seen the nightly Obama cheerleading from virtually the entire MSNBC prime time line-up?

But these are cable commentators you may say, whose sycophantic slobberings are seen by too few to matter (MSNBC regularly comes in a dismal third in the cable news ratings race). Perhaps. But then you have the troubling nuisance of a "hard news" reporter who covers politics for NBC Nightly News admitting "it's almost hard to remain objective" when covering Obama. And the nauseating spectacle of Brian Williams himself, anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, heir to Tom Brokaw and the lodestar of the network's news division, automatically and unconsciously bowing to Barack Obama.

NBC has received some White House access in return for their affections, of course, as the TVNewser story rightly acknowledges. But not enough, it seems, to placate the infatuated NBC newsies.

ABC does seem to have a special place in the President's heart. As I detailed in a recent National Center For Public Policy Research report:

On June 24, ABC devoted a full hour of valuable prime-time real estate to Barack Obama for a Primetime (a production of ABC News) health care forum titled "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," hosted by ABC World News host Charles Gibson and Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer. But ABC News wasn't done making itself a platform for the President's agenda; later that same night, Obama continued his pitch for his health care reform package on Nightline.

Why would ABC farm out its news team to help a politician ply his wares? Well, the fact that the pharmaceutical companies, prime allies of the White House in Obama's national health care push, have constituted the majority of sponsors for ABC World News may have something to do with it. Or maybe ABC just shows Obama the kind of tenderness that NBC can't match, a more subtle and sublime affection which prompts George Stephanopoulos to ask Obama if being president has been "fulfilling" for him.

That's sweet. ABC and Obama make a great couple, and I think they have a real future together. It's going to be a rough Valentine's Day for NBC.

Written by Matt Patterson, policy analyst at the National Center for Public Policy Research. Write the author at [email protected]. As we occasionally reprint letters on the blog, please note if you prefer that your correspondence be kept private, or only published anonymously.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Journalists Against Transparency?

The IPCC's Compromised 2007 Assessment Report (AR4)

In response to my "Three Steps the IPCC Must Take," which, among other things, urged the IPCC to "adopt an uncompromising transparency policy, which includes the release of all data, all emails, all meeting minutes, all drafts and all other documentation related to the development of assessment reports and all other policy pronouncements, in the past and from this date forward," I received the following communication:

Will your Center also be adhering to this stringent transparency standard?

If so, when will such information from your group be available?

Thanks,

Steven DolleyManaging Editor, Inside NRCPlatts Nuclear

I am amazed that a journalist took umbrage at my call for IPCC transparency (which is how I read his response, which I posted in full).

I believe Mr. Dolley misses the point in several ways.

First, (alas!) no nation has ever signed a treaty pledging to undertake actions based on pronouncements made by the National Center for Public Policy Research, as they have for those of the IPCC;

Second, the IPCC is funded by, among others, U.S. taxpayers (we are a tax-exempt institution -- that is, donations to us are tax-deductible; we still pay many taxes -- but we do not accept government funding);

Third, we are not doing peer-reviewed science, though if we did, we would make all the relevant documents public as we urge the IPCC to do;

Fourth, our management is not profiting on the side based on statements made, or conclusions published by, our personnel, as media reports indicate has been going at the IPCC;

Fifth; as we are a tax-exempt institution, like all other such U.S. institutions, our internal documents are not private, as the IRS can request a review of them, including all emails going back three years, at any time, just by asking. No such check exists on the IPCC.

Should at some future date governments around the world start lining up to brag about how strongly they are trying to implement policies based on NCPPR conclusions, I would be happy to suggest to our board of directors that we make all our internal emails, and any other relevant documents, related to the development of those policies, public.

In the meantime, I remain intrigued by the notion of a journalist being opposed to transparency.

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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Note to Project 21 Fans: Glenn Beck Rebroadcast of Most Recent Show Featuring Project 21 Members

The Fox News Channel is rebroadcasting, right this minute, the second of two Beck shows featuring a discussion with black conservatives (including Project 21 members).

If you can't catch it on the Fox News Channel for whatever reason, Booker Rising (a website I often visit, but don't mention as much as I should) has made available the video of the entire show, which is entitled "A Time To Be Heard."

We also posted on this blog the segments of the show featuring Project 21 members. Go here to watch Lisa Fritsch; go here to watch full-time Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli on the "A Time To Be Heard" Glenn Beck broadcast.

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I do believe, though, that if the editors started making the writers -- perhaps especially the editorial writers and columnists, as they have somewhat more of a free hand -- think carefully about the construction of every sentence, the rigor of their thinking would improve overall. Doesn't mean the Times would change its tilt, but it might put up more of a challenge.

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Where are the Vice Chairmen, and Other IPCC Questions

See any vice chairmen? Al Gore (l) and the IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri take their bows in Oslo

Acknowledging that there may be even more errors in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning IPCC's 2007 climate report than the "scientific fact" the IPCC partially copied from a thinly-sourced World Wildlife Fund propaganda document, IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri seems to be blaming his vice chairmen:

The IPCC's 2007 report, which won it half the Nobel Peace Prize, claimed the probability of Himalayan glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high."

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was "poorly substantiated" in the latest of a series of blows to the panel's credibility.

Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC's report was the responsibility of the panel's Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on.

They were Dr Martin Parry, a British scientist now at Imperial College London, and Dr Osvaldo Canziani , an Argentine meteorologist. Neither was immediately available for comment.

"I don't want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs," Dr Pachauri said. "Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation."

You'll notice from the picture, however, that when it came time to take bows, the vice chairmen were nowhere to be found.

P.S. For fun, here's a quiz on this blog post:

Question: What did we learn from this story?A. Never trust the IPCC.B. The Nobel Peace Prize can be ridiculous.C. Be wary of people who refer to other people as "chairs."D. All of the above.

Tom Borelli on Climategate; Cap-and-Trade on Varney & Co.

In the category of "in case you missed it," here's video from the debut show this week of the Fox Business Channel's Varney & Co., with host Stuart Verney. In this video clip, our Tom Borelli discusses funding from the "stimulus" bill being granted to the work of a scientist involved in the Climategate scandal, and he also discusses the impact of cap-and-trade on California.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Investor's Business Daily Covers Our Work on Misdirected Stimulus Funds; Spying on Icebergs

Investor's Business Daily is editorializing today about our press statement on the half-million-dollar "stimulus" grant to Climategate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State.

I love the beginning (the title, "Stimulating Fraud," is pretty hard-hitting):

With double-digit unemployment in a jobless recovery, half-a-million stimulus dollars have saved a ClimateGate scientist whose work could lead to economic disaster. To save this job, we'd lose millions of others.

As we've gone from jobs saved or created to jobs funded in ZIP codes and congressional districts that don't exist except in galaxies far, far away, many interesting nuggets have been mined from the government's recovery.gov, which tracks the administration's lack of progress.

It's one thing to fail to create real jobs. It is quite another to fund the jobs of people who would put millions of Americans out of work...

You see, I noted in passing that DeSmogBlog has equated disbelief in the man-made global warming theory with denying the Holocaust.

DeSmogBlog does so by using the term "denier," which is well-established in global warming circles as a slur intended to impugn the morality of global warming skeptics by equating them rhetorically with holocaust deniers.

In fact, according to Google, DeSmogBlog has chosen "denier" over the less-loaded term "skeptic" (or any other term) over 2,200 times.

How do we know the DeSmogBlog crew intends the phrase "denier" to imply a link to Holocaust denial?

Here's a screen shot of the text of a DeSmogBlog post by Jim Hoggan of Hoggan and Associates (a PR firm that runs DeSmogBlog, and employs Kevin), aka, the big boss:

Innocuous as what I wrote was ("Kindness is not usually a term one associates with the anti-Holocaustglobal warming denier website DeSmogBlog, but its staff has made an exception today..."), Kevin has complained about it in a post on DeSmogBlog, another on the Huffington Post, another on AlterNet, and yet another on the Daily Kos, saying in part:

I sent an email to Ridenour [sic] assistant [sic], David Almasi, the other night asking for an explanation and also pointing out that in the four years I have been writing on climate issues I have never used a Nazi analogy in an attempt to bolster an argument or discredit an individual. So far they haven't responded and I think they're [sic] silence is telling.

Kevin added:

[Using a Nazi analogy] is a stupid and useless means of making a point that only creates division and hate.

I agree. Maybe now that DeSmogBlog's staff has done this over 2,200 times, they might consider cutting it out.

Now that everyone's been reminded that DeSmogBlog explicitly linked "denier" to "Holocaust" (as have others in the global warming alarmist community and mainstream press), if the DeSmogBlog staff continues to use the term "denier," we'll know they mean it double.

P.S. Kevin's co-worker at both DeSmogBlog and Jim Hoggan and Associates, Richard Littlemore, chimed in on DeSmogBlog (curiously, Richard commented on Jan. 16 to a post by Kevin apparently published on Jan. 18 -- perhaps Richard knew two days in advance what Kevin would post the same way he knows 100 years in advance what the climate will be?) with the defense that the word "holocaust" has never appeared in a DeSmogBlog post.

I guess what Richard means is that the word "holocaust" didn't appear except when it did, or...

...he's referring to the fact that someone at DeSmogBlog went back to Jim Hoggan's post, about a year after the denier-is-meant-to-refer-to-Holocaust-deniers phrase was posted, and snipped that politically-incorrect Holocaust reference right out of there.

(Background: Some months after the post was published, a contretemps emerged in several media outlets and websites about the use of the term "denier" being a de facto Holocaust-referencing slur (for instance, in this instance, and in another high-profile but later example, here), and Jim Hoggan's post was being referred to in public by skeptics as proof that the Holocaust reference absolutely, positively was intended.

So Jim's honesty was a but inconvenient for the global warming alarmists who were claiming the Holocaust implication was just something the paranoid "deniers" thought up on their own.

Coincidence or not, they snipped it out.)

P.P.S. DeSmogBlog's Richard Littlemore also says DeSmogBlog does not accuse people of being corporate whores. He says they phrase it differently. Whatever.

Finally (I hope!), Richard says he doubts my word that the National Center for Public Policy Research has 100,000 donors. Mea culpa -- I should have said over 100,000 recent donors (defined as within the last 18 months). If Richard genuinely doubts this as he says, he might familiarize himself with the way a great many, if not a strong majority, of U.S. conservative/free-market non-profits are financed (also he might acquaint himself with something called the "public support test" in U.S. tax law). Ordinarily I would not expect an employee of a Canadian PR firm to know much about public financial support for the U.S. conservative movement, but as Richard has written for years for a website that routinely accuses people in the movement (and many, many others) of doing the bidding of corporate paymasters (please note, Richard, I did not put that phrase in quotes), this is a subject he should have mastered long ago.

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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Urges Penn State to Return the Mann Grant

My hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which has among its readers quite a few Penn State alumni (and future students), is urging Penn State to return the Mann grant:

Granting more than half a million federal stimulus dollars to a professor whose Climategate role prompted a Penn State University investigation is politically motivated misuse of public money at its worst.

Michael Mann received the three-year, $541,184 grant in June, according to The National Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan educational foundation in Washington. Creator of the discredited "hockey stick" temperature graph that purportedly buttressed the case for man-made global warming, he's a key figure in the leaked Climategate e-mails that show data were manipulated and destroyed and contrary research was suppressed to bolster scientifically suspect climate-change orthodoxy.

Penn State is right to scrutinize Mr. Mann's "scholarship." But the university need not await its own decision on his future employment to do the right thing for taxpayers. As the center urges, Penn State should return the money to the U.S. Treasury immediately.

Whoever approved Mann's grant should be removed from the public payroll. And all other stimulus grants should be reviewed to tell taxpayers just how much of their money was misspent to promote Democrat eco-wacko dogma under the dubious stimulus guise of "job creation."

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

National Center for Public Policy Research Senior Fellow and Free Enterprise Project Director Tom Borelli, Ph.D., will be a guest Monday, January 18 on the debut of Stuart Varney's new show, "Varney and Co." on the Fox Business Channel.

Tom will be discussing companies that are lobbying heavily for -- and betting heavily on -- the adoption of cap-and-trade and other energy-limiting regulations, and other ways proponents of energy regulation are scheming to profit from anti-global warming regulations.

And here we thought the cap-and-trade lobbyists were concerned for the fate of the Earth...

"Varney and Co." debuts at 9:30 AM Eastern on the Fox Business Channel; Tom is scheduled to appear at 10:30 AM Eastern. Editor's note: After this was posted, Tom's interview was moved to 10:20.

For those of you who missed it, here's Tom talking with Stuart Varney last week on the topic of Climategate scientist Michael Mann receiving a grant from federal stimulus funds.

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Kevin Grandia, managing editor of the left-wing anti-global warming skeptic website DeSmogBlog, has posted an article on the Huffington Post about our exposure (along with that of others) of Michael Mann's $541,184 grant from federal stimulus funds.

Kevin must have known the article was fundamentally incorrect when he submitted it to the Huffington Post.

The post, entitled "Right wing attacks climate scientist with outrageous spindoctoring," can be read here. It was actually written by one of Kevin's DeSmogBlog writers, Mitchell Anderson, and appeared on DeSmogBlog at http://tinyurl.com/desmogblog on Friday.

Because the Huffington Post is one of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world, and Kevin/Mitchell's article there was so off-the-wall wrong, I posted a comment on the Huffington Post correcting the basic facts. The comment, which makes the most sense if you read the Huffington Post piece first, is:

Kevin Grandia and Mitchell Anderson embarrass themselves with lines such as "How they arrived at this $450,000 error is unknown - it is puzzling when such free market capitalists clearly can't operate a calculator..."

Mitchell and Kevin are talking about the wrong grant, and Kevin, at minimum, must have known this before he posted this here. Their article here links to the National Center for Public Policy Research (which employs me) press release (partially reprinted by Friskaliberal.com, also linked to here), which calls for a return of a grant of $541,184.

Kevin wrote us Thursday to ask about the grant. We IDed the grant for him as National Science Foundation award #0902133, which is for $541,184.

So Kevin knew, before posting this here, that "the climate denial echo chamber" (as he so charmingy calls us) wasn't talking about an entirely different, $770,000 grant to Penn State/ U of HI, of which Mann received a small portion.

The real story: in June 2009, Penn State accepted a $541,184 grant, to cover three years, to Michael Mann's work. Climategate then exploded. Apparently believing Climategate to be serious, Penn State opened an investigation into Mann's work. Our position is that under these circumstances, the grant should be returned to the National Science Foundation, so the funds can be awarded to another scientist.

Kevin and Mitchell seem to think this would be awful. I'm not sure why. Maybe just because we're the ones who suggested it.

Addendum, 1/17/10: Apparently AlterNet has posted this as well. Why aren't these very major websites doing even superficial fact-checking before they publish pieces? E-mail comments to [email protected]. | Subscribe to feed. | Follow the National Center for Public Policy Research on Twitter. | DownloadShattered Lives: 100 Victims of Government Health Care.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Project 21 Members to be on "Glenn Beck" Thursday Night

Project 21's Mychal Massie on Glenn Beck in November

Several members of the National Center's Project 21 black leadership network are scheduled to participate in a town hall-style edition of the "Glenn Beck" show airing on the Fox News Channel at 5:00 PM eastern on Thursday, January 14.

This special edition of Beck's show is subtitled "Content of Character."

This is the second time that Beck has used his show to highlight the thoughts and feelings of black conservatives. Project 21 members also participated in the first program, which aired on November 13, 2009 and was re-run on the Fox News Channel this past weekend.

Check your local listings for Fox News Channel on cable. Fox News is available on channel 118 on Fios, channel 205 on Dish Network and channel 360 on DirecTV.

This post was written by David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Write the author at [email protected]. As we occasionally reprint letters on the blog, please note if you prefer that your correspondence be kept private, or only published anonymously.

If Carbon Dioxide is Expended by Nancy Pelosi, Does It Still Cause Global Warming?

CBS's Sharyl Attkisson revealed Monday (see a post by Noel Sheppard on Newsbusters for video) that "101 Congress-related" people flew to the Copenhagen climate summit last month, at tremendous cost to taxpayers.

But although Attkisson ended the piece with a brief nod to the environmental impact of the huge Nancy Pelosi-approved delegation, her otherwise excellent report told only part of the story. That is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi approved a Congressional delegation to Copenhagen almost a quarter of the size of the entire Congress, she approved an enormous carbon footprint -- and she did it just a few months after twisting arms (brutally) to get Congress to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

Using a calculator and some information available to anyone with internet access, my husband David worked out some quick facts regarding the carbon footprint of Nancy Pelosi's delegation. According to David:

Pelosi's delegation expended the same amount of carbon as 1,300 people combined in Bangladesh expend in an entire year;

Americans presently expend nearly 20 tons of carbon per capita, per year. Each member of the Pelosi delegation, on average, expended 19 percent of that annual amount -- but in just two days.

It is important to cover the way politicians misspend our money. But much of the mainstream press professes concern about CO2 emissions leading to dangerous global warming, so I have just one question: Why aren't reporters covering this part of the story?

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Project 21's Bob Parks on G. Gordon Liddy Today

Project 21 member Bob Parks is scheduled to appear on G. Gordon Liddy's syndicated radio show on Thursday, January 7 at approximately 11:30 AM Eastern for around 30 minutes. Bob Scherr is guest-hosting.

Bob will be talking about assertions made by MSNBC's Chris Matthews that tea party ralliers are "monochromatic... all white." Bob and several other members of the National Center's Project 21 black leadership network have attended and even spoken at past tea party rallies. Project 21 issued a press release yesterday about Matthews' racial insensitivity.

This post was written by David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Write the author at [email protected]. As we occasionally reprint letters on the blog, please note if you prefer that your correspondence be kept private, or only published anonymously.

Inside the Beltway on Chris Matthews

The Washington Times' influential Inside the Beltway column is covering the reaction of Project 21's Bob Parks and Deneen Borelli to MSNBC host Chris Matthews' assertion that the Tea Party rallies of the past year were attended exclusively by whites.

Meantime, no word on the rumor that MSNBC's Chris Matthews and the New York Times' David Brooks were spotted in a hallway arguing fiercely, with Matthews claiming "They're all-white racists!" and Brooks yelling, "They're all dum-dums!"

Poor saps don't realize they're both wrong.

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